“This,” said the latter, as he rose to go, “is one of the most remarkable things which has ever happened to me. I wish I could see what's behind it.”
Pang Li smiled.
“While you were on this job, George, you have also heard a rumour which should be of some interest to the barbarian Japanese. It is that the Chinese are building some very long-range bombers. They hope to have at least a hundred ready by the end of the summer or the beginning of the autumn.'
“Indeed. Capable of carrying out raids on Osaka or even Tokyo, perhaps?”
“Perhaps,” said Li.
George extended his hand and wished his friend goodbye.
“I don't know what your scheme is, but I wish you luck. It is time the deadlock was broken.”
“We shall break it,” Pang Li said with conviction. “The stars in their courses fight for China.”
WINGS OF DEATH
It was mid-August 1965 when the untidy and still slightly bewildered Mr. George White reappeared in Kwei-Chow. It was understood that in the six months of his absence he had covered Hu-Peh pretty thoroughly from the medical missionary angle and had selected several sites where a representative of the Charleston and Savannah Oriental Endeavour League might give valuable service. He had come to discuss their possible establishment with the military governor and the civil authorities.
Pang Li greeted him warmly.
“They tell me you are in high favour at Shanghai Military Headquarters,” he observed.
“Thanks to you, Li,” George grinned, “I have a reputation second practically to none there at present. I understand that I have been commended to the Emperor himself in dispatches, by number if not by name. Everyone was pretty keen to know how it was done, but I was subtly reticent about that, and hinted that the sources must be kept secret for future use. That tip about the new bombers helped, too. It was confirmed soon afterwards from other sources.”
“I had an idea it would be,” Pang Li said softly.
“All the same,” George went on, “I'm hanged if I see what your game is. You got my message that they already had thousands of the generators under construction?'
The Chinese nodded. He could have added that he knew that they were going to be put into use in the Japanese lines on the 22nd of August. The plan, he understood, was to use them in large numbers and disorganize the Chinese forces completely. The value of surprise was not to be thrown away as it had so often been before by inadequate supplies of a new weapon. But he did not mention it now. Pang Li seldom gave information without a purpose.
“And it doesn't worry you, Li? I still can't see what you are getting at.”
The other spoke reflectively:
“It takes a long silk and much patience to embroider a dragon,” he said.
“All right, I suppose that is as polite a way of saying ‘mind your own business’ as any other.”
“Can you give me figures of the production?” Pang Li asked.
George shook his head.
“I tried hard to get reliable figures, but those I got were wildly different. Guesses, I should say. However, you can take it that it is on a pretty big scale.”
“All types?”
“Yes. The small and the large. I understand that large ones are to be mounted and are already mounted outside the principal harbours as protection against submarines. The idea is either to drag them ashore or to immobilize them between two beams and shell them.”
“And for aerial defence?”
“They are putting up immense generators at a distance from the cities. I gather that they see the danger that they might bring planes and bombs down on the generators themselves, so they have adopted a different principle. A very narrow, but intensely powerful beam is generated and is made to swing back and forth across the sky. It is far stronger than would be necessary to bring down any plane. The scheme in this case is that the beam passing over the machine will exert a sudden pull which will either wrench the engine and other metal parts free or break off the wings by the pull on the body. By the time it begins to fall the beam will have swung on so that the plane and bombs will drop vertically and not along the path of the beam.'
Pang Li heard him out patiently.
“They are great imitators, like monkeys. They do not originate. That is the method designed by Ho Tang-hsi.”
“It sounds pretty good to me,” George said. “With a few dozen of those sweeping the sky you'd not have a hope in hell of getting past, not even in the stratosphere.”
“Not even well beyond the stratosphere, if they are using the power Ho Tang-hsi advocated,” Pang Li ammended placidly.
George scratched his head.
“Well, it beats me.”
Half an hour later, as the Englishman was leaving, the Chinese suggested:
“It is perhaps not wise for you to come here too often, but I should esteem it an honour if you would call and take tea with me at four o'clock on the afternoon of the 21st.”
There was a note in his voice which caught George's attention, and told him that it was no casual invitation.
“I will come, Li,” he assured him.
“Taking tea” it appeared was a euphemism, or at least a screen for when the delicately-flavoured, straw-coloured drink had been finished George found himself following his host out of the house. A small yellow aeroplane with official ideographs on the underside of its wings waited in a field nearby. Its engine was already turning over. The two climbed aboard. The plane took off and turned to the west.
After less than an hour's flight they descended a few miles behind the lines and transferred to a waiting car. At a regimental headquarters, Li excused himself, leaving his friend for entertainment by the Chinese officers. Three hours elapsed and it was already dark before Pang Li returned with apologies for the delay. George noticed that he had exchanged his silk robe for a more practical khaki uniform.
“Perhaps I can, in part, make up for my neglect of you by showing you something of interest,” he said.
A car with an official flag carried them towards the lines. Progress was slow on account of laden lorries going up and empties returning. The terminus for road travel lay in a wood. They got out and the car turned round and went back. In the dim light, George could make out several lorries unloading and their cargoes being transferred to the backs of donkeys and mules. In company with a string of the pack animals, he and Pang Li went forward on foot.
In temporarily-roofed sections of the support trenches were scenes of great activity. Cases were being broken open and their contents deftly handled. George stared at the operations with great bewilderment. He watched a man take a long slim cylinder and attach across it at right angles a frame of split bamboo covered with cotton. A couple of fly-nuts, rapidly spun on, fastened it securely and he passed it on to the next man. Farther on, there were men attaching larger frameworks to heavier cylinders.
“What's it all about? Building model aeroplanes?” George asked, for the completed assemblies suggested nothing more than that.
“In a way, yes,” said Pang Li. “But they are venomous little things. That, for instance,” he pointed to one of the heavier type, “is filled with high-explosive.”
“Oh, is it?” said George, eyeing the cylinder with increased respect. “And these?” he pointed to the lighter kind.
“Lewisite,” said Pang Li.
“I see. I thought you disagreed with the use of gas?” he added.
“I do,” Pang Li told him. “But then I also disagree with the use of war. We are a civilized people, we do not honour the military man, for us he is little better than a butcher. But unfortunately war is thrust upon us by barbarous militarists — the words are synonymous — and we must temporarily sink ourselves to their level for our defence. That applies also to the use of gas. It was foolish of them to use it. They did so, of course, under the impression that we had no factories which could produce it.”